NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: The first phase of Assembly polls in UP, scheduled to be held on February 4 has been rescheduled and a fresh date will be announced soon, the Election Commission (EC) said on Sunday citing uncertainty about the date of ‘Barawafat’ festival, which may also fall on the same day.
Meanwhile, State government officers defied the EC’s orders by refusing to cover statues of Chief Minister Mayawati and elephants put up in parks and monuments in Lucknow and Gautam Buddh Nagar. Even after 24 hours since the EC directive, the officers in Lucknow and GB Nagar have so far shown no interest in covering the statues on the pretext that it is an “elephantine exercise involving huge expenditure and manpower”. Some officials tried to cover the statues in Lucknow and then vanished from the scene.
There are over 400 statues of elephants in Lucknow and GB Nagar and about a dozen huge statues of Mayawati, which have been built on government expenditure.